PREVIOUSLY-

"I wanted to ask for both of your help in building this addition. I'm not requesting this as your alpha, I'm asking you as a friend and brother. Bella and I both want to have the pack involved. So, what do you say?" Sam asked them both.

Paul didn't hesitate. "When do we start?"

"Monday 8:30am sharp. And Paul, the guest bedroom we already have is available, whenever you want it. You don't have to wait 'til we get the addition finished. Both of you are always welcome here, whenever you want. The door is open, day or night, whether it's to hang out, crash, watch tv, eat. The only thing I ask is to respect my privacy with Bella. You guys both have good enough noses and ears to figure out if something is going on, so I expect that rule to be followed. Got it?" Sam said sternly.

"No problem, boss." Paul replied immediately.

"Aww, no shows?" Jared joked before holding his hands up in surrender at Sam's death glare. "Just kidding, I'll be good and respect your rules."

-TIME SKIP-THREE MONTHS-TIME SKIP-THREE MONTHS-

The next three months were spent working on the new addition to the house with Sam, Jared, and Paul. It was truly amazing to see what three teenage wolves could accomplish in such a short amount of time. The framing work and walls were already up, the outside was finished, and they were now working on the inside.

I had been working on finishing up school with excellent grades, and I officially only had one day left.

When I wasn't in La Push (which was 9/10ths of the time) I made sure to spend quality time with Charlie. I made it a point to have dinners with him a few nights a week, with and without Sam, and sometimes even Paul and Jared joined in. When I wasn't there for dinner, I made sure Charlie had meals ready to heat up so that he wasn't eating pizza all the time.

Paul had moved into the pre-existing guest room that first week, with little to no objection from his alcoholic father, who probably honestly didn't even know he was gone. Paul only had one box of things to his name, so Sam had taken him shopping for anything else he'd need, which had at first made the 17 year old mad, saying he didn't want it, but eventually he gave in when I'd insisted that he would be cared for whether he wanted it or not. After that, the three of us had made Sam's house a home, even though I wasn't fully moved in yet.

Jared was also at the house more than not, outside of normal patrol schedules, which meant that Sam had a full house quite often. They'd even convinced Sam to partake in multiplayer video games, which looked like it took years off him. He had truly seemed happier than I'd ever seen him in the other timeline, which I was very proud of.

Sam and I had become almost impossibly close in the last three months. He always knew exactly what I needed, and even what I didn't need. It was so vastly different from Edward. I was never once questioned on the decisions I made. Don't get me wrong, Sam would most definitely tell me if he didn't agree with something, but he never tried to make my decisions for me.

We'd had very few disagreements, mostly over small things, but they'd all been settled by just talking it out. That was until now...

I'd insisted (and promised) on spending my last week of high school at Charlie's, wanting to spend as much time with him as I could before officially moving out. Sam had been fine with the idea, even going so far as to insist that the proximity issue would be better now that we were officially mated and had been for some time.

It wasn't until Thursday evening that Paul came to my house. I hadn't seen Sam since I'd come back to Charlie's Sunday night, and it was the longest I'd gone without since he'd imprinted on me. I still felt the ache of not being with him, though. Every night we talked on the phone and he insisted that he was fine, that he wanted me to stay and spend the time with Charlie since my dad had changed his schedule at work for the week to be home every night, which was practically unheard of in the twenty years he'd been with the police.

My chest ached desperately, much worse tonight than most nights. I knew I wanted to see my wolf more than anything. I heard a pebble hit my window and I immediately opened it, seeing Paul outside, asking if he could come up. I moved out of the way and let him in quickly. Charlie was already asleep (considering it was about 11pm), so I motioned for Paul to be quiet. He pointed to his ear then to the door, indicating he would hear if Charlie woke.

"Paul, what's wrong? Is there something wrong with Sam? He didn't call tonight and wouldn't answer his phone. My chest aches. I was about to drive down to La Push myself." I asked, worried enough that I'd almost driven down to the res.

"I can't-" He tried, but there was clearly an injunction placed on him. "Fucking alpha!" He cursed under his breath.

"He put an alpha order on you?" I asked him quickly, knowing Sam hardly ever did that. He nodded, clearly angry. I thought about what I could do. I had the ability to alpha order them, too, maybe I could remove the order Sam made? "Tell me what Sam ordered you not to." I tried, but it didn't work. Paul just shook his head. Damn.

"Tell me what's wrong with my mate?!" I ordered, this time with as much authority I could, desperate to know.

"Pain- drunk- afraid- lost his damn mind-" Paul said, clearly trying to get around Sam's injunction to answer mine. I breathed in deeply, now angry.

"Take me to him. NOW." I told him and he nodded, motioning to the window. It was clear he'd been ordered not to say anything to me, and that made me even more mad than anything.

Paul jumped out the window with ease and stood on the ground holding his arms out to catch me. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that I was doing this for my imprint, and jumped. Paul caught me easily and sat me down. I followed him to the woods where he threw off his shorts, tying them around his ankle before phasing into a wolf far enough away to keep me safe.

He kneeled to the forest floor and whined for me to climb on his back. It was still difficult to get on his back even when he was lying down because he was so large. Somehow, I managed, and grabbed his fur to hold on tightly as he took off in the direction of the Res.

It only took minutes to get to our house instead of the 20-30 minute drive it usually took me in my truck. He let me down carefully and then loped off into the woods to change back. I ran for the door and opened it, letting myself inside immediately.

What I found inside I wasn't prepared for. Sam was sitting in the corner in the dark, surrounded by liquor bottles, all empty. His head was hanging between his arms that were wrapped around his knees and he was muttering to himself.

Paul came in behind me and I turned to him. "How long has he been like this?"

"Half the day today." He replied, seemingly surprised that he could.

"Only half a day? All of these bottles?" I asked him.

"It takes two whole bottles to get us somewhat drunk and we burn them off quick, it only lasts about an hour." He told me. It was obvious Sam hadn't seen me yet, or heard me.

I walked over to him and put my hands on his arms, causing him to look up at me. His eyes were bloodshot, watery, and swollen. "So beautiful…" he muttered, reaching his fingers up to my cheek.

"Sam, honey, what have you done?" I asked him.

"So real… wish my angel was here. Hurts to be away… can't let her see me like this. Miss mom… want Bella…" He whispered seemingly to himself. Had today been the anniversary of his mother's death? He'd told me that she passed away a couple years ago, but he'd never told me when or why and I hadn't pried.

"Sam, honey, I need you to come back to me." I told him, trying to keep his attention on my face. "Paul, come take all these bottles out to the fire pit and destroy them. He's not getting any more." Paul carefully walked over and picked up all 11 bottles of different types of liquor and took them all outside.

I stood up and made my way into the kitchen, grabbing a glass of water and going back to my imprint.

"Sam, can you drink this for me?" I asked him. He didn't even look to see what it was, he just grabbed the glass and drank the whole thing. I took the empty glass away from him and sat it on the coffee table.

It wasn't long before Jared came in, immediately noticing me on the floor next to Sam. He looked between me and Paul.

"Dude, how did you-?" Jared asked Paul.

"Jared, Paul, you know I love you guys, I really do, but I think that I need to handle this one alone. Can you guys go patrol for a little bit? I swear I'll be fine here with Sam." I told them both. They hesitated for a moment before finally walking out the door. A few minutes later I heard two howls outside and knew they had done as I'd asked.

I looked back at Sam, who had tear tracks running down his face. "I don't want to be like him… can't hurt Bella… not good enough… monster."

"Sam, look at me. I'm here, right in front of you." I said to him, putting my hands on his cheeks to get him to look up at me.

He looked up and looked into my eyes, somehow finally realizing that I was actually here. "Bella?"

He seemed to sober up a bit as he looked at me. I knew I must've looked awful. I was exhausted. I couldn't hardly sleep without Sam being next to me, and hadn't slept well all week.

"I'm going to sit here with you until you sober up enough to tell me exactly what happened." He went to open his mouth but I put my finger against it. "I don't want you to speak until you can fully make sense again. I need to be able to understand you, and when we're done talking, you're going to rescind the alpha order you put on the boys. I can promise you, Sam, I am not happy about that."

A/N- As much as I desperately wanted to, I couldn't let their relationship be 100 percent perfect. Everyone has flaws, everyone. You can't grow and learn in a relationship if there's nothing to grow or learn from. Thoughts?